Crises come in different forms — those familiar to the Fire Services, such as emergencies, rescues, explosions, serious fires, contamination, RTAs etc and those less familiar such as terrorism, firebomb attacks with racist undertones and the threat of possible further strike action due to legislation introduced by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.

We understand that issues for the Fire Service in the North of England are different to other parts of the country. We recognise that during the recent Fire Services dispute, Greater Manchester became a focal point for industrial action over issues on pay rises linked to modernisation.

These issues are even more relevant now with the threat of terrorism materialising in London, and the suspects allegedly coming from Leeds.

The issues are becoming more complex, more regional and more blurred. We want to prepare your command team and other spokespeople for a speedy, but considered media response to any crisis you may encounter.

We want to help you overcome nerves, coach you in what to say and what not to say, either at the scene of a fire or rescue, or for a more "political" interview, for newspapers, radio or television. We will include exceptional events in this brief, especially reacting quickly to the unexpected.

We want to help you communicate that you have prepared and planned an effective response to any emergency or disaster. We want to help you communicate that you provide a quality service that is effective, efficient, innovative and responsive to the needs of the Local Authorities in fulfilling their emergency planning functions. We will help you demonstrate your professionalism, integrity, honesty and openness in all dealings with the public, through the media.

Media Training for Area Command Team and Other Spokespeople

We will help you with those tricky live interviews for both radio and, television as well as local newspapers, at the scene of a major incident, or for something more controversial or political. We will help you with:

• What you can and can't say to the media.
• How you present yourself, both visually and in terms of what you say about your Fire Service.
• Overcoming nerves, while you are pre-occupied with saving lives, but need to speak to the media.
• Practice both routine incidents (fires, RTAs, rescues) as well as more controversial incidents such as racist attacks, a firebomb through a letter box, terrorism, or even a response to the threat of strike action.

We will fully explore the range of incidents you may have to comment on to the media, including:

• When disaster strikes
• Major incidents
• Terrorism
• Emergency Planning
• Reaction to enquiries about strike action or changes brought in by the Deputy Prime Minister
• Role of the Local Authority
• Flooding
• Rescues
• Damage limitation

This Workshop will be a mixture of theory and practical with the emphasis being on the practical. The quickest and most effective way to "get up to speed" with the media is by actually doing real-life media interviews and we will spend most of the day doing this.

Each course member will be given a set of tools to empower them to do any and every media interview. They will be then be asked to perform three media interviews each - one for newspapers, one for live radio and one for pre-recorded Regional TV, throughout the course of the day. Or we can do all three broadcast interviews, mixture of live and pre-recorded.

Having learnt the theory behind this, we set out to put this into practice and make a filmed recording of each and every interview throughout the day. We give constructive feedback on every interview and tailor each interview to scenarios relevant and applicable to the Fire and Rescue Service in the North of England.

The media skills and media empowerment work through a steep learning curve, which each course participant experiences by doing first one interview (print), receiving feedback, then another interview (radio), receiving feedback and finally a third interview (television) and receiving feedback. They also learn almost as much from each other (active listening) as from the media trainer.

So, each Workshop will start with a presentation of the basics of media training and will include:

• Aims and objectives of media relations.
• Demystifying the media - identifying your local media outlets.
• What is news? What does the local media want from a story?
• Reacting quickly to the media after an incident.
• Giving media interviews with minimal preparation time.
• How to present a positive view of the Fire Service at a major incident or time of crisis.
• How to look and sound confident and overcome nerves.
• Crisis management - how to respond to a crisis or media negativity.
• General rules for interviews - how to handle a media enquiry.
• How to take control of the interview and achieve your objectives.
• Preparation for interviews — even in two minutes.
• Strategy and tactics - including key messaging.
• Success stories and crisis management.
• Print, Radio and TV interview techniques.
• Down the line, OB, telephone interviews, doorstepping, panel i/v's.
• Using your voice and how to present yourself visually.
• Do's and don'ts.
• Practical session including three individual interviews per participant per day - print, radio and TV.

The Workshops will help demystify the media for those people who are not very experienced at dealing with the media as well as those who are. It will show them what the media wants at the scene of a major incident and what makes a good story for them.

It will provide a set of tools for handling enquiries from journalists and answering journalists' questions. It will help you become more comfortable and confident when speaking to journalists.

We also want to get away from a stock response "No Comment" type reply to genuine interview requests from the media - as this is very damaging and passing on interview requests to "the same old faces".

This Workshop will allow participants to handle the enquiry, find out what the journalist wants, prepare for a media interview and finally answer the journalists' questions for print, radio and television.

Each course member will have a chance to participate in at least three, real-life journalist interviews, during the course of the day. These will be recorded, filmed and played back for analysis by the course tutor and the group - highlighting the positive and the negative, in order to improve.

The learning tool is do learn do - where the difficult skill is acquired by actual practice - following on from an initial level of theory.

We tailor the programme and devise scenarios, directly relevant to the issues of Fire and Rescue Services in the North of England, and conduct a series of interviews, getting progressively more difficult, until you become adept at handling virtually anything the media can throw at you.

A full list of these scenarios will be produced on the day of the Workshop but here is a sample:

• Major incident involving fire service. How to respond quickly for requests for live and pre-recorded interviews.
• Response to a major disaster.
• Terrorist attack.
• Controversial incidents such as a racist attack, or a firebomb placed through a letter box.
• Flooding.
• Rescues.
• Damage limitation to property.
• Arson attacks.
• Road Traffic Accidents where the Fire Service is attending.
• Interview where you are asked to "blame" someone — a person, the Local Authority, another Emergency Service, such as the Ambulance Service.
• Something more controversial, such as an enquiry about going on strike, the threat of strike action, or an enquiry about your pay dispute involving modernisation.

Agenda:

Morning:

Afternoon:

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